I've probably directed more bad language at Jesse Helms than at any other politician in my lifetime, so I was delighted when he retired in 2002. He might have been a nice courtly man in private, or so his obituary says, but his public positions were a hundred years out of date and his campaign tactics were despicable. Some of those positions are still in effect. He amended the Foreign Assistance Act of 1973 to include the following language:
"No foreign assistance funds may be used to pay for the performance of abortion as a method of family planning or to motivate or coerce any person to practice abortions."This has effectively sentenced thousands if not millions of women to hardship if not death, since it's been broadly interpreted to mean that NGOs which offer abortion counseling as a small part of their overall mission can't get funding for the work they do overseas.
Goodbye, Jesse Helms.
Posted by Linkmeister at July 4, 2008 07:48 AM | TrackBack